The Provisional Government and the October Revolution

The Kadet Government

Following Nicholas II's abdication, a Provisional Government was announced on 3 March. The historian Milyukov became Foreign Minister, and Guchkov became Minister for War. The Minister-Chairman of the Provincial Government was Lvov. Kerenski, a Social Revolutionary, was appointed head of the Ministry of Justice. They announced a series of radical reforms: civil liberties; freedom of speech, association, assembly and the press; abolition of religious and social privileges. Elections were promised for a Constituent Assembly with the franchise extended to all adults, male and female, over the age of 21.

The government was supported by the Kadets. They supported the expansionist war aims made by the Tsarist regime with Britain and France. The Kadets failed to appreciate that only a defensive war could gain the support of workers and soldiers. The government was also tacitly supported by the Mensheviks and Social Revolutionaries. These parties believed that any attempt to create socialism at this time would result in civil war. However, the Mensheviks and SRs had a majority in the Petrograd Soviet and could influence government strongly through it. Power was shared between the Provisional Government and the Petrograd Soviet.

For the most part workers and soldiers did not resort to violence. There were some exceptions. Admiral Nepenin, commander of the Baltic fleet, was lynched. Officers were often humiliated by symbolic acts, such as having their epaulettes torn off. Workers established factory-workshop committees. The end of the Okhrana encouraged an atmosphere of debate.

Industrialists became more militant. Their Petrograd Society of Factory and Works Owners advocated lock-outs during the summer of 1917. The Moscow industrialist P.P. Ryabushinski remarked that only 'the bony hand of hunger' would create discipline. However, the rich were becoming demoralized — savings were sent to Europe, families were sent to safer locations.

The Provisional Government appointed 'commissars' to replace the provincial governors of Nicholas II, but these were unable to be effective.

Nationalist aspirations began to surface. A central council (Rada) was established in Kiev, and it pressed for greater self-determination for the Ukraine. In Finland the leading party called for a Finnish parliament to be established.

The Provisional government was led by Prince Lvov - but it was no more than a committee of the old duma that had refused to disband, so it lacked authority. It went into unofficial partnership with the Petrograd Soviet. The first order issued by the Petrograd soviet on 1st March instructed troops in the Petrograd garrison to subject themselves to the authority of the Soviet. The Provisional government was powerless to prevent the Soviet issuing these decrees. It lacked authority over the army. Soviets were being formed in all the major towns and cities in Russia; and their orders made clear their assertion of authority - declaring orders of the provisional government to be valid only if approved by the Petrograd Soviet.

The Provisional Government decided to continue the war. They felt it necessary in order to continue receiving war credits and supplies from Western allies. Russia was nearly bankrupt. But the military campaign was unsustainable. Morale collapsed among the soldiers by 1917. Bolshevik agitators were successful in getting front line troops to mutiny. The Petrograd Soviet declared in favour of “peace without annexations or indemnities” on 14th March. However, foreign minister Milyukov maintained that Russia would continue in the war.

Milyukov blundered by sending a telegram to Paris and London in which he affirmed support of the government for the secret treaties signed with the Allies in 1915. The telegram was leaked by the Menshevik telegraph operators. There were violent demonstrations against Milyukov in late April. Milyukov and the war minister Guchkov resigned in early May.

Social Revolutionary and Kadet coalition

In response Lvov invited Mensheviks and Social Revolutionaries into the administration. On the 5th May a second cabinet was formed in which SR Alexander Kerenski became War Minister, and Mensheviks Irakli Tsereteli and Mikhail Skobeleve became ministers. The SR leader, Viktor Chernov, also joined this cabinet as Minister of Agriculture.

Within the Provisional Government Kadets wished to maintain a centralized administration, Mensheviks and SRs wanted Russia to turn into a federation of states. They were willing to grant self-government to Ukraine. The Kadets were discredited by the Milyukov telegram.

The government did not abandon its war commitments; Lvov was nominal head, but Kerensky became increasingly dominant. He tried foolishly to make the war into a crusade for “freedom”. There was widespread mutiny. General Kornilov called for an end to offensive military action and for the direction of energy to suppressing political agitation.

The Kadets withdrew from the government in late June. This happened when the Provisional Government agreed to recognize the Ukrainian Rada as the regional government of the Ukraine. At the same time there was a Russian offensive on the southern part of the Eastern front. The Germans successfully reinforced the Austrians and pushed the Russians back into the Ukraine. This induced nervousness in Petrograd.

Social Revolutionary Government under Lvov

In June there was the First All-Russia Congress of Worker's and Soldiers' Deputies held in Petrograd. This elected a Central Executive Committee to coordinate all soviets across the country. Kadets had to tolerate these developments, because they could only stay in power with the support of the Mensheviks and SRs. They also entertained the possibility of bringing the Bolsheviks into the government.

However, this was thwarted by Lenin's return to Petrograd. He was put onto a train by the German government on 3 April. When he arrived he found the Bolshevik party divided between those who wished to join the government and those opposed to it. Kamenev and Stalin favoured cooperation. Lenin presented his April Theses on the 4th April at the Tauride Palace. He advocated that the Bolsheviks should obtain majorities in the soviets, and use these as the basis for the overthrow of the Provisional Government. By the end of April the Bolshevik party, in their Seventh Party Conference, accepted the April Theses, and ties with the Mensheviks were severed. The Bolsheviks, led by Lenin, regarded dictatorship and terror as necessary means to an end. They sought to develop slogans that would have a mass appeal: peace, bread, all power to the soviets, worker's control, land to the peasants, national self-determination. Bolshevik representation in factory committees and soviets increased during May and June 1917. Party membership may have increased to as much as 300,000 during this period.

The Bolsheviks planned an armed demonstration for the 3rd July. This was banned by the Provisional Government. The demonstration went ahead nonetheless. Loyal troops were instructed to break-up the demonstration, which they did by firing on it with many fatalities as a consequence. The Kronstadt naval base 15 miles west of Petrograd mutinied on 3rd July. The uprising was crushed on July 6th, after which Kerensky became Prime Minister. Lenin and Zinoviev fled to Finland; Trotski, Kamenev and Kollontai were imprisoned. Lvov stepped down, Kerensky became Prime Minister and Kornilov became commander-in-chief.

The provisional government did not recognise the importance of the land question. The peasants believed that land would be given to them. When it wasn't disturbances throughout 1917 ensued. A Land Commission was established but made little progress. The members of the government were mainly landed aristocrats. They were prepared to redistribute the lands of the fallen monarchy, but not their own lands. However, the Bolsheviks had traditionally rejected an alliance with the peasantry. Then Lenin switched tactics and announced that Russia was a special case in which the peasants were revolutionary. This was a direct appeal to Russian soldiers who were mainly peasants. He adopted the policy of the Social Revolutionaries regarding land and used the slogan “Land to the Peasants”. This split the SRs and left SRs began to associate with the Bolsheviks. The Bolsheviks gained peasant support.

The Kerensky Administration

Prince Lvov resigned in favour of Kerenski, who was only 36 years old, and without experience. Kerenski was a brilliant orator, and energetic but prone to mood swings. He immediately experienced difficulties in forming a cabinet, and it took him to 25th July to create one. This was quite a success in that the SR leader, Chernov, agreed to continue as Minister of Agriculture, and three Kadets remained in it.

Kerenski wanted to establish government authority in the provinces and ensure supplies to the cities, so he appointed the authoritarian General Lavr Kornilov as Supreme Commander of Russian forces.

Foreign loans were harder to obtain, and as a result there was a resort to deficit financing. Inflation increased as a result. The harvest of 1917 was only 3% below that of 1916, but peasants would not release their stocks until prices rose and the currency was stable. Kerenski did not at first agree to peasant demands for increased prices, but, on 26th August, the cabinet was forced to agree to a doubling of grain prices. Even so, by October Petrograd held stocks only sufficient for three days of rations.

The Germans were planning an offensive in the north, and Russian troops were becoming ill-disciplined. There were desertions on a massive scale. The Germans advanced and Riga fell on 22nd August. Kerenski's survival depended on the success of Allied armies on the Western front, and Germany was no where near to collapse at this time.

For the main part, the right in Russia remained silent. Kornilov and Kerenski had initially got on well together, but Kornilov became increasingly suspicious of Kerenski's resolve. When on 27th August Kerenski rescinded his previous order to stiffen the garrison in Petrograd Kornilov decided to march on Petrograd nonetheless, saying “It is time to hang the German supporters and spies, with Lenin at their head, and to disperse the Soviet.” By late August German forces were threatening Petrograd. Kornilov decided to bring loyal troops to Petrograd to defend the Provisional Government. It is possible that Kerensky privately supported the move, although publicly he condemned it. (He was cleared of collusion by a 1917 Commission of Enquiry into the affair.) In order to defend the city Kerensky called on all loyal citizens to arm themselves. Kerenski was forced to appeal to the Petrograd soviet for assistance, and Bolsheviks, Mensheviks and SRs faced Kornilov's troops. These troops were persuaded not to press forward; they stopped their own trains and put Kornilov under arrest. The Bolsheviks were able to portray themselves as saviours of Petrograd.

Kerenski's position was hopeless. He could not survive if he continued the war; but could not withdraw from the war without being attacked by all parties. He could not survive the election of the Constituent Assembly, and was accused by Lenin of delaying it.

Unrest spread to the countryside, where wealthier and poorer peasants combined to take land and property from the gentry. Cases of seizure of land rose from 3 in March, to 237 in July. The mood of such actions become more violent. The mood in industries also became more militant. Workers councils supervised the management; in some cases the management was replaced altogether. Soldiers and sailors subjected the commands of officers to scrutiny. The news that land was being redistributed caused thousands of desertions.

Following the Kornilov mutiny Kerenski ruled by means of a five-man temporary Directory, made up of two armed service chiefs, and two others. He badly lacked legitimacy. On 14th September he had a 'Democratic Conference' of all parties to the left of the Kadets, but the Conference was a shambles, and there were too many divisions within it to provide him with the consensus of support that he lacked.

Kerenski decided to send troops into the countryside to requisition food supplies by force; as a result six Kadets joined his government in a Third Coalition of 27th September. A Provisional Council was formed on 14th October. It became known as the Pre-Parliament. The idea was that this would act as a quasi-Parliament until the election of the Constituent Assembly, but it lacked power and held no respect.

Lenin composed his treatise The State and Revolution advocating immediate seizure of power. The Central Committee, in his absence, rejected this. However, Bolshevik infiltration of the factory workshop committees and the soviets was increasing. By 31st August they had a majority in the Petrograd soviet, and only days later they obtained a majority in the Moscow soviet. During September and October many other urban soviets throughout Russia fell under Bolshevik control.

Lenin returned to Petrograd in disguise and on 10th October he persuaded the Central Committee to ratify his policy of a seizure of power. There were splits in the Mensheviks and SRs. A left-wing faction of the Mensheviks called for an immediate all-socialist coalition; the left Social Revolutionaries split from their main party. Lenin was prepared to deal with these factions but not with the Mensheviks or Social Revolutionaries generally.

Central government was effectively powerless in the regions.

Among the Bolsheviks Kamenev and Zinoviev opposed Lenin's plans and informed the press of them. However, Trotski, Sverdlov, Stalin and Dzierzynski supported them, and Trotski coordinated the armed action as chairman of the Military-Revolutionary Committee of the Petrograd Soviet, which had gained influence over the garrison soldiers of the capital.

The October Revolution

The Bolseviks seized power in Petrograd on 25th October, 1917. They took over post and telegraph offices, the railway stations, and army garrisons. The Winter Palace fell by the end of the day. The Second Congress of Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies ratified the transfer of authority to the soviets. Lenin rapidly formed a government, and called for an end to the Great War.

Lenin's ideology was at variance with traditional socialist thinking that assumed that socialism would involve universal-suffrage democracy. Lenin, on the other hand, advocated dictatorship, discrimination based on class, and ideological indoctrination. Lenin sought to justify his ideas in his essay The State and Revolution, written during the summer of 1917, and published in 1918. In this work he argued that there would be a transition phase between the revolution and the inauguration of socialism. This transition phase would be called “socialism”, and would require a dictatorship, thoguh eventually the need for this would wither away when utopia was reached.

However, other socialists in Russia and elsewhere predicted that Lenin's ideas would not lead to an end of dictatorship, but to a self-perpetuating, oppressive dictatorship. They rejected Lenin not only because they were horrified by his ideas, but also because Lenin's ideas brought socialism in general into disrepute.

Following the seizure of power, the Bolsheviks were by no means assured of continued success. They assumed they might be ousted at any moment.

However, the events of October 25th, whilst surprising, caused no immediate disruptions to daily life — business carried on as usual. The siege of the Winter Palace came to an end when the battleship Aurora sailed up the river Neva and trained its guns on the palace. Kerenski escaped by limousine in the general chaos to the American Embassy. Lenin emerged from hiding and at the Bolshevik headquarters at the Smolny Institute he encouraged his colleagues to press on to complete the seizure of power before the opening of the Second Congress of Soviets later in the day.

The Bolsheviks had only 300 out of 670 elected delegates in the Congress. Lenin did not want to share power with the Mensheviks and Social Revolutionaries. When Lenin and Trotski entered the Congress they were greeted with a tremendous roar. Menshevik and Social Revolutionary deputies stormed out of the hall. This gave the Bolsheviks a majority in the Congress. Trotski proposed that the Congress be called the Council of People's Commissars (Sovnarkom). Lenin would take the title of 'Chairman'; ministers would be called 'People's Commissars'.

However, opposition started to build. The Railwaymen's Union threatened strike action unless a coalition of all socialist parties was established, and news broke that a Cossack regiment loyal to Kerenski was moving towards Petrograd. However, the Mensheviks and Social Revolutionaries refused to deal with Lenin, which continued to give him a majority in the Congress. The Cossacks of General Krasnov were defeated by soldiers loyal to the Congress on the Pulkovo Heights outside Petrograd.

The Bolshevik government proceeded to make a series of public announcements. On 25th Lenin made a proclamation justifying the uprising in terms of 'the will of the huge majority of workers, soldiers and peasants'. On 26th October Lenin signed a Decree on Peace, declaring that peace without annexations, indemnities and so forth was their objective. He called the Great War, 'the greatest crime against humanity'.

Lenin also signed a Decree on Land inviting peasants to seize the lands of the nobility without compensation. He only wrote the preamble to this decree himself; the rest of it was simply copied from the Social Revolutionaries own policy documents. It was to become illegal to buy, sell, rent or mortgage land. The Decree was immensely popular with peasants and became known as Lenin's Decree.

The Bolsheviks were able to extend their power into the country as a whole. Before the October revolution they already had majorities in several urban soviets. Throughout the country Bolsheviks came to power mainly through local support. In some cases armed units were sent from Moscow. There was occasional armed resistance from Mensheviks and Social Revolutionaries — for example, in Ivanovo and Saratov.

A decree of 29th October confirmed the eight hour day; a code on workers control of factories was issued on 14th November. However, he refrained from sanctioning the nationalisation of all industry.

On 26th October he issued a Decree on the Press, that gave him powers of censorship whenever he deemed that what was written was contrary to the decisions of the Second Congress of Soviets.

Reasons for Bolshevik Success

(1) The other parties had cooperated with the Provisional Government, and had allied with it, waiting for a Constituent Assembly. (2) The other parties continued to support the war effort. (3) The Mensheviks regarded the Provisional Government as a necessary preliminary to the triumph of the proletariat. (4) There was no tradition of democracy and the Bolsheviks were more ruthless and more adaptable than the other parties. (5) The Provisional Government was weak. It was a self-appointed body and lacked authority. (6) The Provisional Government failed to act with determination against the Bolsheviks. The Bolsheviks also over-estimated the strength of the provisional government. (7) The Bolsheviks successfully increased their numbers from 25,000 in February 1917 to 340,000 in October (but these are estimates only). (8) Whilst the Petrograd committees of workers were not Bolshevik, they were equally opposed to the provisional government.